Gombrich argues that we can
see either the duck or the rabbit in the duck-rabbit picture [above],
and never both: that we cannot perceive, or hold in the mind, both at once.
However, following Wittgenstein, we might suggest
that the act of switching between seeing the duck and seeing the rabbit
(the two 'aspects' of the picture) affects the perception of both aspects
['The expression of a change of aspect is the expression of a new
perception and at the same time of the perception's being changed' .].
We might, for instance, be immediately able see the duck in the duck-rabbit
picture, but not able to see the rabbit. Then, suppose we suddenly can
: this dawning of an aspect (the other aspect) will affect our perception
of the first. From this point on, our experience of the duck in the duck-rabbit
picture is 'contaminated' (albeit minimally) by the possibility of seeing
the rabbit, and vice versa. That is to say, we might be seeing the duck
aspect of the duck-rabbit picture and know that we can switch to seeing
the rabbit aspect; however, this switching between two seemingly pure,
binary states (as Gombrich would have it), is in fact constituted by a
necessary contamination of the duck with the rabbit in both the aspects
of the picture and the picture itself.
From Gombrich, Art and Illusion ,
5:
'... we can switch from one reading to another with increasing rapidity;
we will also 'remember' the the rabbit when while we see the duck, but
the more closely we watch ourselves, the more certainly will we discover
that we cannot experience alternative readings at the same time.'
From Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
, 195:
I contemplate a face, and then suddenly notice its likeness to another.
I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this
experience "noticing an aspect".
[...] I shall call the following figure, derived from Jastrow [Fact
and Fable in Psychology], the duck-rabbit. It can be seen as a rabbit's
head or as a duck's. And I must distinguish between the 'continuous seeing'
of an aspect and the 'dawning' of an aspect.
The picture might have been shewn me, and I never have seen anything but
a rabbit in it.
[...] I should not have answered the question "What do you see here?"
by saying: "Now I am seeing it as a picture-rabbit". I should
simply have described my perception.
[...] I see two pictures, with the duck-rabbit surrounded by rabbits in
one, by ducks in the other. I do not notice that they are the same. Does
it follow from this that I see something different in the
two cases?
[...] I am shewn a picture-rabbit and asked what it is; I say "It's
a rabbit". Not "Now it's a rabbit". I am reporting my perception.
- I am shewn the duck-rabbit and asked what it is; I may say "It's
a duck-rabbit". But I may also react to the question quite differently.
- The answer that it is a duck-rabbit is again the report of a perception;
the answer "Now it's a rabbit" is not. Had I replied "It's
a rabbit", the ambiguity would have escaped me, and I should be reporting
my perception.
The change of aspect. "But surely you would say that the picture is
altogether different now!"
But what is different: my impression? my point of view? - Can I say? I
describe the alteration like a perception; quite as if the object
had altered before my eyes.
[...] The expression of a change of aspect is the expression of a new perception
and at the same time of the perception's being changed.
[.]
The duck-rabbit picture [above]
[b. 1953] became, via a natural process of mutation (and the artificial
introduction (by a kind of surrogacy?) of quasi-genetic codes from (ie:
in the form of pictures of) a duck and a rabbit), a Duck-Rabbit (After
Wittgenstein) [above] [b. 1995] (in which the rabbit
genetic information appears to have been dominant) and a Rabbit-Duck (After
Wittgenstein) [above] [b. 1995] (in which the rabbit
genetic information appears to have been recessive). In each of these daughter
figures can be seen: the parent duck-rabbit picture, the rabbit picture
and the duck picture. Via a rotational translation, a further contamination
of the quasi-genetic codes of these figures bears (there is, here, the
question of incesticide to be considered) the Rabbit-Duck to Duck-Rabbit
50% genetic morph [above] [b. 1995].
[.] References
Gombrich, Art and Illusion, A Study in the
Psychology of Pictorial Representation , 1959, Oxford, Phaidon, 4-5.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
, tr. G.E.M.Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell, 1978, first published 1953,
194.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
, tr. G.E.M.Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell, 1978, first published 1953,
195.
